Download the live recordings from Suburban Home Records 16th Anniversary party

If you didn't happen to make it or if you just want to relive the experience, Suburban Home Records has let loose a free compilation of music recorded live at the label's 16th Anniversary Party last month. That's 28 tracks from several bands, recorded by James Freeman from That's the Thing About That with a microphone and directly from the soundboard -- which is to say it sounds amazing while still capturing the energy of the night.

The bulk of the recordings cover Suburban Home's current punk-turned-country lineup, with most of the songs practically handing you a shot of whiskey just by listening to them. The benefit of the live record comes from the microphone that picked up the audience reaction, which includes a lot of singing along to nearly every song played. It's mixed well enough that it'll occasionally give you goose bumps, but never annoy you.

More interesting, perhaps, for longtime fans of the label's outfits are the last eight songs, which are all covers from the likes of Two Cow Garage, Have Gun Will Travel, Lizzie Huffman and Michael Dean Damron. These aren't your usual range of expected covers either, Two Cow Garage's duo of Lemonhead covers are fantastic, while still bringing back a weird twinge of nostalgia, and its cover of Rancid's "Ruby Soho" is such a perfect fit its hard not to pump your fists along with it.

Most of the covers here are entertaining to listen to; Have Gun Will Travel's cover of Tom Petty's "You Wreck Me" is weirdly spot-on, in an almost eerie way, while Lizzie Huffman's cover of Gillian Welch's "Miss Ohio," is a beauty. It's not say the first twenty songs aren't any good, but there's something special about the (possibly drunken) covers toward the end. You're not getting the whole two-night affair here, but you are getting a hand-picked best-of selection that's well worth checking out regardless of whether you were able to make it out.